


Five Days

by Jinniyah



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Angst, Community: eleventy_kink, Gang Rape, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mindfuck, Prison, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinniyah/pseuds/Jinniyah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor spends five days locked in a prison at the mercy of the very worst of humanity. And when Amy and Rory finally succeed in gaining his freedom, his ordeal is not over. Not by any means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Days

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in response to a prompt on eleventy_kink. Prompter wanted (amongst other things) 11!raped with epic comfort from Rory, but no healing sex. Set between 'Vampires of Venice' and 'The Hungry Earth'/'In Cold Blood'.

Rory passes over the Doctor's release papers without a word.

Five days. That's how long it's taken him and Amy to sort out this mess, to prove that the Doctor isn't who the human colonists of Silva Prime think he is and that, far from being incarcerated without trial, he should be freed immediately.

The jails are overcrowded. The Doctor has been placed in a maximum security prison stuffed full of high risk prisoners, the majority of them serving life sentences for crimes involving extreme violence and coercion. Rory knows the Doctor doesn't lack ingenuity when it comes to extricating himself from difficult situations, but this time the odds are heavily stacked against him. In such a place, he'll look exactly like what he is: a hapless outsider locked in there for the first time. Given his lack of aggression and physical appearance of a harmless-looking young man in his twenties, putting him behind bars with hardened career criminals is the equivalent of throwing a juicy bone to a starving wolf pack. Rory can only pray five days hasn't been long enough for the inmates to get their act together.

But now the Doctor is walking awkwardly towards them, as if each movement costs him, and for the first time since Rory's known him, there's no spring in his step, no energy. And Rory's heart is sinking because it's obvious his prayers have fallen on deaf ears, and that this is going to be bad.

'We get the Doctor and we start walking, Amy,' he mutters. 'And we keep walking until we're in the TARDIS. Got it?'

'Yeah, got it,' Amy says, tight-lipped. They'd discussed this, he and Amy. She was ready for the worst, just as he was. 'Doctor!'

'Rory, Amy. Can we go?' The Doctor stops a little way away from them. His voice is low, his face stripped of animation, and Rory realises he isn't looking at them, almost as if he can't bring himself to meet their eyes. His clothes are rumpled and torn - bow tie, braces and jacket gone altogether – and his chin unshaven. His hair, stiff and unkempt, is shoved back off his face as if he can’t bear the feel of it. There's bruising around his jaw and a thin line of dried blood across one cheek.

'Rory.' Amy nudges his arm and Rory realises he's staring. 'Move. _Now._ '

The Doctor leads them out of the prison gates and into the street before he hesitates, unsure where the TARDIS is in relation to the prison until Rory gives him directions. When Amy lengthens her stride, trying to catch up with the Doctor, Rory shakes his head at her and she falls back to his side, her face sharp and anxious. The eventual sight of the sanctuary of the TARDIS, standing four-square in the centre of a plaza, is one of the most welcome things Rory can ever remember seeing.

The Doctor stops and, without a word, Rory steps forward and hands him the TARDIS key. This is the nearest he's been to the Doctor since his release; he's close enough now to smell what he knows isn't just the reek of sweat and dirt from five days locked away. One last humiliation, Rory thinks bitterly. Either that or no-one in the prison service had even the most rudimentary decency to let the Doctor wash properly before they freed him.

The Doctor fumbles slightly with the key and then he slips inside the TARDIS. Rory and Amy follow, equally anxious to close out the world. The Doctor has crossed almost immediately to the centre console and is standing there with his back to them, shoulders hunched, fidgeting with some of the controls.

'Pity I didn't land us on Silva Prime after Lizetta Acarady was inspired to campaign for prison reform rather than before, but that's the way it goes sometimes.' There's a forced nonchalance to the Doctor's voice as he stares at something he's pulled up on the monitor. 'Thanks for getting me out. Oh. And yes, that thing you think happened to me in there, it... happened. Bad stuff. Not good. But all over and done with. Nothing wrong now that a shower and clean clothes won't fix.'

'Really?' Amy folds her arms and glares at his back, the kind of glare she reserves for times when she's frightened for those she loves and angry about her own helplessness. Rory tries to catch her eye, but she's not looking at him.

'Yes, really.' The Doctor finally turns to face them, his expression unnervingly calm. 'I don't break easily. And I heal quickly. Basically, I'm not badly hurt at all. Just a little...' He hesitates, as if casting about for a suitable word before settling on, 'sore. Yes. That's it. I'm just a little sore. In every other way, fine. See? No broken bones.' He waggles his fingers at Amy and smiles fleetingly. The smile doesn't reach his eyes at all, Rory notes.

'So you've got no broken bones. That's good, but it doesn't make you _fine_ ,' Amy says bluntly.

'Amy, it's over.' The Doctor's voice has a slight edge to it now. ‘So let’s leave it there.'

'I hear what you're saying, Doctor.' Rory picks his words carefully; he’s aware of how much the Doctor wants to close down this conversation, but he has nagging medical reasons for not wanting to do so just yet. 'But first, if you're okay with it, could I -'

'Just... _stop_.' Unexpectedly the Doctor slams his hands down hard on the TARDIS console, and Amy and Rory both jump. The Doctor takes a deep breath, clearly trying to control himself before he speaks again. 'Please listen to me, because I'm not going to say this again. I know you mean well, but I don't need your help. Got that? Good. Now back off.' The Doctor stares at the monitor for a second or so longer before he turns on his heel and exits the console room without a word, leaving Rory and Amy staring helplessly at each other.

'That went well,' Rory mutters.

'I screwed up. I _know_ , all right?' The sharpness of Amy's voice does nothing to hide her distress. 'So now what?'

'Now we do what he wants,' Rory says, holding her close as she comes into his arms. 'We back off.'

'But _five days_! Look at him! He's hurting and you're a nurse and-'

'Amy, he's got to agree to be the patient.'

'I know! I just - '

'Listen to me,' Rory says firmly. 'This is what we'll do. We'll let him shower. We'll give him some space. And then, when he comes back, you –'

'I'll leave you both alone.' Amy interrupts. 'And you can do your medical... thing.'

It's a reasonable enough plan, Rory thinks, given that the Doctor doesn't appear in need of immediate medical attention. But then time starts ticking away and there's no sight or sound of him, and Amy can't settle, alternating between checking the corridors nearest the console room and pacing up and down, chewing on her lip. And Rory's starting to get a gut feeling that they shouldn't wait any longer, that something's not right. He takes a deep breath, putting on his Nurse-Rory-knows-best voice. Then he tells Amy to stay put and heads off in a search party of one.

Once out of the console room, Rory frets a moment over which direction to take. Then, without making any conscious decision, he finds himself heading for the nearest bathroom - the one appearing to date from the 1960s with a pastel pink bath, toilet and sink, and geometric print lino; the shower is the only modern component, screened from the rest of the bathroom by a translucent shower curtain.

Rory reaches out to knock on the door but it swings inward at his first touch, revealing the bathroom to be so full of steam it's more like a sauna. Toothbrush and toothpaste lie discarded by the sink, along with the Doctor's clothes, and there's a faint smell of vomit. The shower is on and the shower curtain is pulled right across, but the moment Rory catches sight of the Doctor sprawled on the floor behind it, he rips it aside without hesitation. Turning off the shower as fast as he can, he calls out urgently to him.

'Doctor! Can you hear me?'

When there's no answer, Rory grabs hold of one of the Doctor's shoulders and shakes him. The Doctor stirs slightly, his eyelids flickering. Rory leans over him, grasps him under the arms and pulls him onto the dry lino. Then he turns him onto his side, carefully tilting his head back. The Doctor's breathing is shallow and rapid and even though the bathroom's climate is verging on tropical, he's shivering. Normally his body temperature is much cooler than a human's, but right now he feels warm and fevered to the touch.

Rory pushes the Doctor's dripping wet fringe out of his eyes; his hair's clean and sleek and, like his skin, scented with grapefruit. After a moment, Rory recognizes the fragrance as Amy's Happy Hippy hair and body gel and there's a world of bittersweetness in that. He takes a deep breath, forcing calm. Then, as deftly as possible, he starts to examine the Doctor's external injuries.

There's no indication of head trauma and nothing that immediately leaps out as being responsible for the Doctor's present state of collapse. Dark bruises ring his wrists and there are some painful-looking contusions on his upper arms, ribs and abdomen. In places, his skin is marred with ugly blisters, as if cigarettes have been deliberately stubbed out on his body, but Rory can't see as much damage as he'd feared, and he's not doing any intimate examinations without the Doctor's consent. He collects the huge fluffy white towel from behind the bathroom door, covers the Doctor carefully with it, and then settles to the floor beside him.

'Doctor, this isn't something you have to deal with on your own,' he murmurs. "Let me help you. _Please_.'

And if the Doctor doesn't start to show a few more signs of regaining full consciousness in the next minute or so, Rory realizes he'll have no choice but to start dealing with it himself. Because the Doctor is a wreck. That's not a clinical medical assessment; Rory knows he's too personally involved to view this with complete detachment. Even though every professional instinct he has cautions him against it, all he wants to do is gather the Doctor in his arms and just hold him.

The Doctor doesn't appear to be working from the same set of medical procedures as Rory. He's still trembling, his breathing ragged, but somehow he manages to grab Rory's arm and, with surprising strength, pull himself up until he's huddled against him. Rory's starting to get an uneasy suspicion there's more to the Doctor's fragile state than can be readily explained by either rape trauma syndrome or his physical injuries. But then, it was a bit stupid of him to assume in the first place that the Doctor's responses to rape would be vaguely comparable to those of humans given that he isn't actually human.

'How can I help you, Doctor? Tell me what I need to do!'

He has to put his head down to the Doctor's mouth to hear the whispered response. 'Overload. Shock. Rory, please...'

Rory has no idea what the 'overload' bit refers to, but shock he understands all right. There are things he can do about shock, but first he has to get the Doctor off the floor and into the infirmary, and for that he needs help.

'Amy!' he shouts, knowing she won't be far away.

And then the Doctor presses his lips against Rory’s and kisses him.

Rory’s eyes widen in shock. He’s still trying to work out the best way to react to this when the Doctor reaches out and clutches desperately at Rory's hair, deepening and intensifying the kiss. He's frantic and fevered, and so needy it feels like he is set on devouring Rory's very essence. Under the tang of toothpaste, he tastes sour and not at all pleasant. With no idea what's happening, Rory decides the only thing he can do is hold the Doctor's shoulders, not in an attempt to try and stop him, but simply in the hope that the touch might calm him a little.

Driven by default back to his medical training, Rory races through a mental list of rape trauma syndromes but comes up blank. There's no anger or hostility in the Doctor's action. Nor does it seem to be some hyper-sexual coping mechanism kicking in, because the Doctor is now pressed close enough to Rory for his lack of arousal to be obvious. There's just this heartbreaking, desperate need for mouth to mouth contact.

'This is... so not what I expected.'

Amy's voice comes from behind him. She sounds anxious but not at all embarrassed by what she's seeing, and Rory loves her for it. The majority of people would be more than a little discomfited on finding their fiancé locking lips with a mostly naked friend, whatever the circumstances. But Amy just drops down to the floor beside them. She presses up close, putting one hand over Rory's as he holds the Doctor and stroking the other gently over the Doctor's wet hair.

'Oh my poor raggedy Doctor,' she whispers. 'What's happening to you?'

The Doctor lifts his mouth from Rory's and his gaze flickers between Rory and Amy, his eyes distressed. Then he draws in a long, uneven mouthful of air before sinking his mouth down onto Amy's. To Rory, watching, he looks like a drowning man, struggling to breathe. He sees Amy screw up her eyes and try not to flinch away at the taste of the Doctor's mouth. This is a far from enjoyable experience, but it's clear she accepts the Doctor has his own reasons for doing this, and she's willing to play her part. She cradles the Doctor's head, so now Rory wraps his arms around them both and holds them as close as he can.

'It's all right,' he says quietly, feeling stupid and useless. 'It'll be all right, Doctor. We've got you.'

And then he realises that they truly have. He and Amy are locked in this strange triangle with the Doctor, holding him, reassuring him, protecting him. And the Doctor himself is clinging to them in turn, shifting from one to the other, seeking their mouths as if his very life depends on it.

Maybe it does. Rory doesn't know. He doesn't know anything at this point, can't focus on anything other than keeping them close, because that's what the Doctor seems to need, and there's no sound except his and Amy's vague and meaningless murmurs of comfort, and the Doctor's harsh breathing. It's a while before Rory realises the TARDIS has largely cleared the bathroom of steam and filled it with dry warmth and a scent of pine forests - not the chemical pine smell of disinfectants, but the real thing, like he remembers from a walk through conifer plantations in the Forest of Dean.

Then the Doctor lifts his mouth from Amy's and whispers, very faintly, 'Tea?'

'Tea?' Amy echoes, her eyes wide and bewildered. 'You want tea?'

'Yes. Tea,' the Doctor says. His face is haggard and he's still trembling, but his voice sounds slightly stronger. 'It's a noxious infusion of leaves containing a high percentage of toxic acid, but it's good at reversing enzyme decay and -'

'We know what tea is.' Rory puts a finger on the Doctor's lips. ' Amy - bring tea.'

'Hmph. What did your last servant die of?' But a little of Amy’s sparkle is back in her face.

'Hello? Nurse here, with patient.'

'All right!' Amy gets to her feet, relinquishing the Doctor back into Rory’s hold. 'You look after him and I'll go and pop the kettle on.'

Once she’s gone, Rory tries to ease himself into a less cramped position on the lino because the Doctor has settled back against Rory like he has no intention of moving – at least, not until he's had his tea. The towel's on the floor next to the him, but he makes no attempt to retrieve it. Instead he's stroking his chin, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

'Rory, I'm getting a beard. I can't get a beard. That would be ... wrong. Very bad and wrong. I have to shave.'

'Not until your hands stop shaking,' Rory says patiently.

'Are they shaking?' The Doctor holds his hands out and inspects them rather as if they belong to someone else. 'Ah! Look. Shaking. You're right. That's really not clever, is it? So it's tea first, then beard removal. Yes. Good.'

This feat of reasoning successfully undertaken, the Doctor sighs and lowers his hands. He looks so damned young like this, fragile even, Rory thinks. Only his eyes betray him; no-one that young could ever have eyes so weighted with memory. Seeming suddenly exhausted, the Doctor closes his eyes and slumps awkwardly against Rory, their heads gently colliding.

The next instant the floor beneath Rory turns to cold metal slats and he barely has time to register the grinning faces around him before he's convulsing in sharp, burning pain. Someone is forcing their way into his body, ramming their way inside him like they want to take him apart. God, oh God, it _hurts_. Rory closes his eyes and he doesn't want to open them ever again, because he knows this is just getting started. The man pulls out of him a little way, then grunts and shoves right back in and Rory cries out, struggling to get away, but he can't move from the position he's being held in. He's getting hard, and although he knows it's involuntary, Rory still wants to scream when he feels a hand between his legs, jerking him off to taunts and jeers. And then his hair is grabbed, his head dragged back and mouth yanked open, and - oh Christ, _please, no_ -

And Rory is still sitting on the lino. But now the Doctor is lying in a short distance away from him, looking very much as if he's been flung violently against the floor – or flung himself there – and he's staring at Rory with an expression of utter anguish.

'No, no, _no_!' Then his voice catches, sounding like it's about to break. 'Oh hell, _Rory, no_... '

Rory says nothing. He doesn't think he can move, let alone speak. Not while his brain is still in shock and scrabbling to make some sense out of what just happened. Because on one level, nothing has happened at all and he's very much aware of that - but he has the memory. Oh dear God, the _memory_. Then the truth hits home.

The memory is the Doctor's.

For one horrified moment Rory isn't sure whether he wants to throw up, or to slam the Doctor against the nearest wall for inflicting this on him without any warning, without any consent.

'Rory? Say something. Please. Anything.'

'What in the name of God did you just do to me?' Rory shuts his eyes and presses his hands against his temples, wishing he could somehow claw that snapshot of hell out of his head.

'What I did was neglect to properly shut down a psychic link.' The Doctor's voice is tight and raw. 'I'm a touch-telepath and I needed to make a link between you, me and Amy. But I never intended to share any of - '

'Maybe not,' Rory cuts across him, too shaken and angry to speak with much thought. 'But you bloody well _did_ share it. Where the hell were the guards while all ... _that_ was happening?'

'The guards? The guards were running scared, Rory. They were looking for ways to keep the inmates quiet, stop them from rioting, so I was a bit of a gift. They handed me over to my appreciative new owners the day I got there. Let's just say it wasn't the best day of my life.' He pauses, and Rory hears him swallow. 'Well, you know.'

Rory does, much though he wishes he didn't. The Doctor never had a chance of avoiding rape, he realizes. He'd been given no opportunity to try and project the right image, or find the right body language: he'd been set up as a victim by the people in charge and presented to the inmates as theirs for the taking. 'And the other four days?' he asks, opening his eyes.

'More of the same until I learned to give them what they wanted. The quicker they finished, the less damage I took.' The Doctor pulls himself upright and wraps his arms around his body, shivering. His voice holds steady, but Rory detects the bite of anger underpinning his words. 'Unfortunately, my new-found skills turned out to be a double-edged sword, because then they decided to rent me back to the guards in exchange for alcohol and cigarettes.'

'They rented you back to the guards,' Rory repeats slowly and then he gets it. 'Oh dear God, the guards raped you as well, didn't they?'

'Oh yes. Frequently and enthusiastically. The first time they came for me, I actually thought I was going to be released. I remember I even thanked them. Silly old me. They laughed. Well, of course they laughed. Then, when they'd done laughing, they showed me why I was really there.'

Rory doesn't trust himself to give a response to that. He tries to centre his rage on those who truly deserve it: the brutal inmates, and those who not only allowed such an evil regime to exist but actively participated in the abuse. Then, in an effort to calm his thoughts by focusing them on practicalities, he picks up the discarded towel and passes it to the Doctor.

'Do you need more of the – um – kissing?' he asks uncertainly.

'No, thank you. No more kissing.' The Doctor clumsily twitches the towel across his lap. 'Just tea.'

Something is beginning to niggle unpleasantly in Rory's mind. 'You said you made a psychic link between the three of us. So Amy could have had all that dumped into her mind instead of me, couldn't she?'

'Absolutely not.' The Doctor looks horrified at the suggestion. 'Every particle of control I had left would've been screaming at me to protect her.'

'But not me.'

'No.' The Doctor stares at Rory. 'Why are you looking at me like that? Oh. _Oh_. Rory, listen to me because this is important. Nothing screamed at me to protect you because I was responding to the way _you_ were protecting _me_. I trusted you completely, relaxed what defences I had left. Only I screwed up and relaxed them way, way too much and I'm so, so sorry. I would never have hurt you on purpose, you need to know that.'

'Oh,' Rory says uncertainly. 'All right.' It really isn't all right in very many ways. For a start, Rory's never going to get the Doctor's ordeal completely out of his head, not the bit of it he shared with such horrific intimacy. Even so, there's still a tiny grain of truth in "all right": Rory's aware that rather than feeling like a third wheel rolling uselessly around the TARDIS, he's starting to get a sense of belonging, of actually having a place there.

'What's all right?' Amy asks from the doorway, pausing with the tea tray and eyeing them in slight misgiving. Then she says impatiently, 'Oh, never mind. More to the point, how are my boys doing?'

'We're in need of a cuppa,' the Doctor tells her, trying for lightness and not succeeding. 'Isn't that right, Rory?'

'Er, yeah. That's right. A cuppa.'

'Well, here we are, then.' Amy sets the tray down on the lino before seating herself cross-legged next to it. The mugs are the usual jumble sale leftovers from the TARDIS crockery collection; the teapot is big and brown and the size of a large kettle. 'I'll be mother and pour.'

The Doctor almost smiles, but his hands shake so much as he tries to take the mug from Amy that in the end Rory has to hold it up for him. His first sips are tentative, and he takes his time swallowing the liquid. Amy passes Rory his tea only when he's satisfied that the Doctor's made enough of a recovery to hold the mug without spilling its contents.

The Doctor, Rory decides, knew what he was on about asking for tea, all the stuff about repairing enzymes aside. Amy's made "builder's tea" — brick-coloured and pungent — and the strong, rejuvenating taste of it hits the spot like nothing else could.

They drink in silence. Without any prompting, Amy fills the mugs as they empty and the TARDIS teapot obliges her by never running dry: Rory starts to wonder if it's as dimensionally transcendental as the TARDIS herself. The Doctor's the one to bring their strange little tea ceremony to an end, which seems entirely right and proper. With great care, he places his empty mug back down on the tray and looks up at them.

'Well, this is embarrassing,' he says. The tea seems to have cured the shakes and there's some colour back in his face. Rory wouldn't go so far as to say that he's back to his old self, but he certainly looks — and sounds — a damn sight better. 'I tell you I don't need your help. Then I find out I'm completely wrong. What does that say about me?'

'It says you make mistakes.' Amy tells him bluntly. 'Like we didn't already know. So, why all the snogging, Doctor?'

'Ah, the snogging. Yes. I owe you an explanation. And, of course, you want the truth. You _deserve_ the truth. Only where to begin …' The Doctor rubs a hand across his face, clearly trying to focus his thoughts. 'There's this thing I do,' he says at last. 'I have a touch-enabled ability to share thoughts. Along with, well, I suppose it's easiest for you to think of them as heightened sense receptors. Most of the time, they all tick over quite nicely on their own. It's like breathing; it's not something I have to think about, and they even ramp up my defences in situations that might otherwise be overwhelming.'

Amy considers this for a moment and then puts her own spin on it: 'So it's like a firewall that blocks out bad stuff?'

'Yes. Sort of. Only …' The Doctor hesitates a moment; Rory has a sense of him choosing his next words with the precision of a surgeon selecting tools for surgery. 'Only walls can be broken, Amy. Even when you don't expect it. Or, more likely, _because_ you don't expect it.'

A sudden hush wraps around them, thick and oppressive. When Rory feels Amy's hand seeking his, he grips it tight as much for his own comfort as hers. They both wait for the Doctor to speak again.

'Oh, I knew I was in a bad place back there, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to talk my way out of it this time. Let's just say that old firewall of mine was given a good workout. Believe me, heightened senses and an ability to read thoughts are things you really, really don't want in that situation. Without them, what happened was no more pleasant for me than it would have been for anyone else, but at least it was no worse, either.' Then the Doctor looks away from them, his face closed and shuttered. 'Or rather it wasn't. Before I came under psychic attack.'

Rory had been assuming he already knew the most unpleasant aspects of the Doctor's ordeal; this revelation hits him like a kick to the stomach. Amy grips Rory's hand tighter, but he's only vaguely aware of it.

'Silva Prime's an Earth Colony and humans aren't known for their psychic gifts. But one of the guards who assaulted me was a powerful exception to the rule, and he had this way of using his abilities to … enhance his own enjoyment.' The Doctor's voice is brittle and full of sharp edges. 'He timed it carefully. Waited until they'd all had their fill of me. Waited until I made the mistake of letting my mental guard relax a fraction. Oh, it was just a tiny little lapse on my part, but that was all it took for him to worm his way inside my head. I should've been more —'

'Doctor, none of this was your fault!' Rory interrupts, his lips white with anger. 'You're not to blame for what someone else did to you!'

'Maybe not. But it doesn't matter. What matters is somehow that man managed to tear up my defences, making sure I not only got to feel the unedited sensory and psychic trauma of gang-rape, but also that I was fully aware of just how much pleasure they all took in repeatedly violating me.' The Doctor lifts his head a fraction and when Rory sees the look in his eyes, he feels like he's just stepped out over a dark abyss. 'Oh, I tried to repair the damage, of course I did, but he'd managed to shred so much in such a short time, and no matter what I did to try and satisfy them, it was never over, and there was never enough time to —'

The Doctor stops abruptly, closing his eyes, screwing them up tight. Rory and Amy are both still, barely breathing, and the silence that follows is fragile and utterly horrible.

'And … that's enough.' The Doctor's eyes flicker open. He blinks once or twice, and then carefully reassumes a semblance of composure. 'Let's move on. I mean, I haven't even got to the snogging yet, have I?'

'No, you haven't,' Rory manages, trying to match the Doctor's self-control and failing. Dear God. That sudden and sickening sharing of the Doctor's memories hadn't been a simple screw-up at all: it only happened because the Doctor's psychic defences were shot to hell.

'All right, then. Snogging. Well. I thought once I was back in the TARDIS, I'd be fine. And I was wrong. Almost catastrophically wrong as it turned out.'

'You had some sort of sensory overload?' Rory ventures a guess.

'Not quite. But when you found me, some of my key neurotransmitters were critically overloaded enough to start sending me into shock.'

'Lucky Rory got to you when he did, then,' Amy says, her voice tight and hard.

But the Doctor shakes his head. 'Oh no. Luck had nothing to do with it: that was the TARDIS. Even though I'd stupidly closed her out — the way I closed the two of you out — she was still watching over me. She used low level telepathy to communicate with you.'

'It felt like I had something itching in my mind,' Amy remembers. 'I couldn't stay still.'

'I just had the feeling something was wrong.' Rory thinks back in dawning understanding. 'And when I did go to look for you, I found you straight away.' That bathroom door had practically opened itself, he remembered.

'She's smart, my girl.' The Doctor places the palm of one hand on the lino, like he's giving the TARDIS a blessing or a benediction. 'She helped you find me. And there I was, needing a way to stabilize all those failing neuro-transmitters. A very quick way.'

'You needed us to kiss it better.' Amy's eyes widen in comprehension. 'I mean, to _literally_ kiss it better.'

'Yes. I used your touch, scent and taste combined with a mild psychic link to stabilize myself. I had to draw on everything about you both that was good, clean, pure, wholesome —'

'Well, that can't have taken long,' Amy quips, but her expression is anything but flippant.

'Look at you.' The Doctor smiles and, incredibly, it reaches his eyes. 'Look at the pair of you. I throw all of this at you, and you come back at me with witty one-liners. You are quite simply magnificent.'

Amy tips her hand in an exaggerated flourish. 'That's us. Completely and utterly magnificent. Witty one-liners, kisses and tea, our specialities.'

'Ah yes, the tea. How could I forget the tea? Thank you. For tea. For everything.' The Doctor gives them both a smile. 'Now I shall finish my shower and put some clothes on.'

'So that's it, is it?' Amy says, suddenly frowning. 'You're just going to wash, get dressed and put all of this behind you?'

The Doctor considers her words for a moment, and then nods. 'Yes, that's pretty much what I'm going to do. Well, that and zap all my sore bits. Oh. And shave. Why? Do you think there's something else I should be doing instead?'

'Well, I don't know! Is this some alien … thing of yours? Because now you're acting like you're _so_ over this and it's all too quick and it's just … weird. Sorry.' Amy stares at the Doctor suspiciously. 'Unless you're pretending again. _Are_ you pretending again?'

'Yes.'

The stark honesty of that one word cuts straight to Rory's heart. Amy bites her lip and says nothing. Rory laces his fingers in hers and waits.

'The restabilization bit — that's true,' the Doctor adds after a short silence. 'I'm not going to nearly die on you again. Promise.'

'Amy,' Rory says. 'Pretending everything's okay is actually normal. Well, normal-ish.' More normal than psychic links anyway. 'Although getting to this stage does usually to take more than a few minutes. Although that's with humans, and the Doctor's not … human.'

'That's me. Weird and not human. Thank you, Rory!'

'Yeah, thank you, Rory,' Amy echoes in a manner strongly suggesting she isn't completely sold on his explanation. She stands and picks up the tray. 'Rory?'

'Just give me a moment.'

Amy looks hard at them both. 'All right then, but _you_ -' she fixes the Doctor with a stare. 'If pretending isn't working for you, then for God's sake _say_ something. Don't you _dare_ shut us out again. Got that?'

'Got it.' The Doctor is unexpectedly meek.

'And there's one more thing.' Amy twitches her nose. 'Don't think I haven't noticed you smell just like my Happy Hippy shower gel. Any of it left?'

'No,' the Doctor admits. 'It's all gone now. Sorry.'

'Well, I'm not,' Amy says with feeling. Rory knows full well she'll never buy that particular product again: after today neither of them will be able to smell its sharp fragrance without a shudder.

Amy's parting smile at the Doctor is warm, if a little tremulous, and once she's departed back to the kitchen, there's a long silence. In spite of his earlier words, the Doctor makes no attempt to return to the shower. He seems to be waiting for Rory to say something, which is good because Rory definitely has things he needs to say and he's determined to make sure he's listened to.

'Doctor, pretending everything's all right when it isn't … I understand it's a coping mechanism. And that's okay. But I'm here if you want any help. I mean, I'm just a nurse, not -'

'You're not _just_ anything, Rory,' the Doctor says quietly. 'And you're very sweet.'

Rory sighs. 'Do you have to be so bloody patronising, Doctor?'

'Was that patronising? It wasn't meant to be. I like you, Rory. Really, I do.'

'Okay. Right.' Rory gives up. It's impossible to stay exasperated in the face of the Doctor's unnerving sincerity. 'But it's like Amy says: don't think you have to pretend to us. Ever.'

'All right,' the Doctor agrees. 'But I'm trying to avoid dwelling on things and brooding this time around. That hasn't worked out so well for me. It can all end up a bit self-destructive, you know.'

'Er, no. Not really,' Rory says. 'But I do know that repressing stuff tends not to be all that healthy either in the long-term.'

'For humans maybe not. Time Lords are a slightly different kettle of fish. Well, I say "fish" but –'

'Doctor, I know you're not a fish-based life form.'

'Good, good. Yes. Of course. What I'm trying to say is I'm over nine hundred years old. There's a lot of memories sleeping in here.' The Doctor taps his head. 'And some of them are extremely painful, but I do find ways of dealing with them. Not always the _right_ ways, but ways.'

'Well, that's good. I mean, not the ways that aren't right, but the other ones. They're good … ways. Really. I'm just glad you're all right and this is all over.'

The Doctor is silent for a long moment. Then he draws in a long breath. 'Oh Rory, I wish it were.' His voice is suddenly tense and unhappy. 'But I don't think it is.'

'Why? What is it?' Rory's heart sinks.

'Rory, listen. We _can't_ leave. Not yet.' The Doctor's suddenly angry and his words tumble over each other in his urgency. 'Amy was right to call me out: I _was_ on the verge of leaving something undone. Something very important. I've made this all about me, and it's not all about me. Except in one very important way. Lizetta Acarady was inspired to campaign for major prison reforms on Silva Prime. We've arrived shortly before she begins her campaign. So what do you imagine inspired her?'

'I don't know — I haven't …' Then Rory gets it. 'You. You think it's you, don't you?'

'The abuses were first drawn to Acarady's attention by an off-worlder. Someone who made statements to her and many others, who submitted to medical examinations and then disappeared from the planet five days later. Yes, I think it's me. And I can't take the chance it's _not_ me. Rory, I just can't.' The Doctor makes a noise of disgust. 'How could I have been so _stupid_? Why didn't I think it through? I shouldn't have showered, or —'

'Doctor!' Rory's used to the Doctor's more hyper moments, but this is verging on panic. And with good reason. The Doctor not only faces revisiting something incredibly painful, but having to do so as he tries to rebuild walls in a mind Rory's pretty sure is the psychic equivalent of rubbed raw and bleeding.

'You were thinking about other things, remember? Important things. Like how to restabilize those neural transmitters of yours so you didn't die. Look, your clothes will have plenty of forensic evidence on them. And then there's your injuries. Unless Time Lords heal so quickly that all traces of trauma will disappear in the next few hours.' He waits a moment until the Doctor shakes his head and then adds, 'You likely have some internal injuries — tearing of rectal tissues, possible bacterial infections, some of which, by the way, you'll find hard to heal with the sonic screwdriver or anything else unless you're some sort of contortionist. Doctor … this Aracady woman's doctors will have to examine you, you know that, don't you?'

'Yes, Rory, I know that. Maybe —' The Doctor hesitates. He moves one hand towards Rory in a tiny awkward gesture and then stops.

Rory takes a deep breath. 'Do you want me to carry out the examinations instead?'

The Doctor gives him a look of mute gratitude, and Rory knows he's called it right.

'It's fine. I'll do it. Her doctors will still have to still observe and question, obviously, but —' and here Rory takes another leap into the dark, feeling his way, but damn certain he's on solid ground. 'But I won't let anyone else touch you, I promise.'

'Thank you.' This time Doctor doesn't look at him, but he reaches out and clumsily covers one of Rory's hands with his own. He grips it tight for a long moment, his knuckles whitening.

'What about Amy?' Rory asks hesitantly.

'I can't …' The Doctor pauses, blinking hard and then scrubbing one hand across his eyes. 'Rory, I would prefer her not to be there if I'm giving a statement or being examined. Please try and help her understand.'

'All right.' Rory imagines that Amy's distress, no matter how well she hid it, would be all too apparent to the Doctor — and very hard for him to keep blocking in his current state. 'She was amazing, you know, when we were trying to get you released — I couldn't have got them to listen without her.'

'Amy Pond is a force of nature, Rory,' the Doctor says, trying to smile. 'And this time she'll be a vengeful Fury. The Silva-Primians won't know what's hit them.'

Rory gets to his feet and reaches out a hand so he can pull the Doctor up with him. 'So five more days it is, then, Doctor. Only this time we'll be with you.'

'You're a fine person, Rory. Oh. Am I being patronising again? Does "fine" sound better than "sweet"? Or worse?'

And suddenly the Doctor's leaning up against Rory, wrapping his arms around him, and resting his chin on Rory's shoulder. The warm air circulated by the TARDIS has dried the Doctor's hair into a fluffy mess and the strands tickle against Rory's cheek. Rory brushes them gently aside and then hugs him carefully back because the Doctor's not just a patient, or a weird and often infuriating alien, he's becoming a friend.

'"Fine" is … well, fine, Doctor,' he says. 'Really, it is.'

END


End file.
